Tag Archives: christianity

May 24, 2008 · 6:21 pm

Prayer and Fasting and George Washington

Alexandria, Virginia, Presbyterian Meeting House   Presbyterian Meeting House

I’m stepping where George Washington actually stepped as he went into this building to dedicate a national day of prayer and fasting that he had proclaimed.  The French were threatening.  And Washington entered this church to ask God’s protection for the infant country.

Obviously Washington was unafraid to mix religion and politics, for here he was in church asking God’s blessing on the event.

How far we’ve strayed from the original Founding Father’s intent.  They all believed in a Creator, a reachable Supreme Being–so much so that their writings are filled with allusions to Him–so much so that our first president would actually lead the nation for a complete day of prayer and fasting.

Prayer is a communication to God where we fragile finite beings may grasp the invisible, spiritual, and heavenly things.  And fasting is an act where we let go of our most precious and pressing fleshly desires–that of savoring delicious foods.  And both are done believing God will see and be pleased.

Where in the world did Washington get this idea to fast and pray?  Whatever possessed him to presume to put fasting and praying on the people?  He read it in the greatest bestseller of all time, the Holy Bible.  He knew its precepts were pristine and pure, its ways effective, and in dire times, as did the ancient Hebrew prophets and apostles, he would pray and fast for divine protection, too.

210 years ago, secular humanism did not rear its egotistical head here in Alexandria.  Agnosticism found no place in the faces of this young country.  No atheists or other “dark designing knaves” were there to prevent humility from taking the stage for a needy nation.  No cynic sneered at a humble and greatful people. 

Only the giving of thanks was heard on these very steps that George Washington trod on May 9, 1798.

                                                                                                  

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May 13, 2008 · 12:54 am

Parable of the Tares in the Field–Children of the Wicked One

Evil has a face–a human face.  Evil has arms and legs, but above all, a cunning mind and a devious heart.

Some faces of evil are obvious.  Those of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and other tyrannical butchers come to mind.  But it’s the faces of evil that you pass on the street or see in restaurants or that sit in locked board rooms–those are the ones we must beware of.

And, oh, how our spiritual forefathers warned us of these evil ones.  The apostles and prophets and our Savior Himself warned us of them.

Who are they?  They are called the children of the devil,  “the children of the wicked one,” “false teachers, false prophets,” and rich men “heaping treasure together for the last days” (James 5:3), among many other names.

They are the “tares” in the “Parable of the Tares in the Field.”  We must remember that parables contain the mysteries of God.  Parables are used purposefully to teach God’s elect while hiding those same secrets from the multitudes.

Reading “The Parable of the Tares of the Field” (Matthew 13: 24-30, 37-44) is like viewing the true spiritual history of man through the eye of a satellite camera.  In it we see a landowner (the Son of man) who sows good seed (the children of the kingdom) in his field (the world).  But an enemy (the devil) came and sowed tares (the children of the wicked one) along side the good seed.

The servants notice the tares coming up with the wheat and asks the owner if they should pull up the tares.  He says to let them both grow together until the harvest (the end of the world), so that the good seed won’t get uprooted along with the tares.

And so the harvest comes and the reapers (the angels) put in the sickle.  The wheat (the children of God) are separated from the “children of the wicked one.”  The latter are then taken and destroyed.  The children of the Kingdom inherit all things with their Father.

Point: the wicked one has children; they are in our midst.  Some are common sociopaths without a conscience.  Others are more subtle, working diligently with other rich men for a “one world government.”  They are paving the way for the Anti-Christ to take over the New World Order.  They cry “peace, peace, when there is no peace.”

Peter warns of them in II Peter 2, saying that “while they promise the people liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption” (v. 19).  Jude devotes his whole letter as a warning to be aware of these “children of the wicked one.”  Moses wrote of these who give their hearts and souls to Satan as the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15).  Christ told the Pharisees, “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44).

From Genesis to Revelation, they are there.  We must beware of them because evil strides the earth today.  And evil has a face–a human face.  KWH

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May 8, 2008 · 1:24 pm

Anti-Christ Stands in Temple Before Christ Returns

     “Whoa, Wayneman,” some will say.  “My preacher told me, ‘You better get right because Christ could come tonight!'”

     Although God is sovereign and can do whatever He pleases, He’ll keep His word first.  And He said by His Spirit through His apostle Paul that there are several pre-requisite prophecies that must come to pass before He comes back. 

     A, B, C must happen first.  1, 2, 3 takes place, then He returns.  

     But which coming are we talking about though?  The Big Coming.  The Coming when Christ is “revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.”  We’re talking “flaming fire taking vengeance” on the disobedient.  No time for political correctness during this coming.  It’s His coming “to be glorified in His saints {that’s us–the set apart sons and daughters, His princes and princesses}.  It’s that coming seen in II Thessalonians 1:7-10.

     But the Thessalonians in 54 A.D. were worried that “Christ could come tonight!”  So Paul consoles them and admonishes them to “be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled…as that the day of Christ is at hand…” (2:2)  Don’t get shook, he’s saying.  Certain things must happen first before this terrible day of vengeance comes.  1, 2, 3…

  1.    Deception reigns. He warns, “Let no man deceive you by any means” (2:3).  This is exactly what Christ told his disciples when asked for a sign of HIs coming: “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Matt. 24:3-4).  So there will be wholesale deception in the world around the time of His coming.
  2.    Because of the deception, there will come a “falling away” from the true faith.  Because of the unbelief of the people, an apostasy of grand proportions will engulf the earth.  The masses will fall for false teachings about God.  So much so that “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie…” (2:3, 11).  
  3.    Because of the delusion of the masses, the Anti-Christ, the “man of sin…the son of perdition” will be revealed–the Devil Incarnate.  His characteristics?  He “opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God…so that he as God sits in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2:3-4).  Now who would fall for him?  All those deluded and deceived by his “power and signs and lying wonders” (v. 9).
  4.    The temple of God must be rebuilt in Jerusalem first before the man of sin can exalt himself in it.  This is a huge sign.  When we hear of this taking place, the Big Coming is getting close.  The rest of chapter 2 is our consolation wherein God comforts his followers through the end time as Christ puts an end to the evil.

     The time of the end will be catastropic on a world wide scope.  Political, ecclesiastical, and geological  upheavals will abound during this time of “great tribulation.”  This is why the Thessalonians in 54 A.D. were worried.  They believed that they would be around when the end-time terror and horror went down.  They did not believe that they would mystically and conveniently escape through a rapturous opening in the clouds.  They knew they would barely make it through the hard times, and that only with God’s help.  But that’s another post.

     So, that’s why I say, Christ cannot come back tonight.  Too many specific things must happen first.  And they are happening fast.  We need to watch and be alert.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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May 4, 2008 · 1:50 pm

Parables Conceal the Mysteries of God

     Parables are not nice little stories to help us understand the Bible. We have been told this by well-meaning teachers and pastors, but it is not true.  To the contrary, parables are used by God to deliberately keep some from knowing His secrets.  Before you click away, let me elucidate.

 

     The Creator has a stupendous plan to reproduce Himself.  He has had His prophets and righteous men write about it down through the ages. But He has kept it secret by speaking about it in parables.  In order to comprehend His purpose, we must first understand His concept of the use of parables.

 

      The first thing to know is that parables contain the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”  They conceal the secrets of God, hidden since the foundation of the world.      

     God is sovereign, and He will reveal Himself and His plan to whomever He desires.  “For a man can receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven.”

 

      Christ, the Anointed One, was teaching the multitudes in parables.  Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.  {First, parables reveal “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.”  And He gives this knowledge to certain ones, and some He does not give it to} This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, nor do they understand…but blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” Mt. 13:10-13, 16, RSV.  

 

     Parables are His “dark sayings.” The word “dark” is translated from the Hebrew word, chiydah, #2420 in Strong’s, meaning a “puzzle: hence a trick, conundrum, sententious maxim: dark saying (sentence, speech), hard question, proverb, riddle.”  Puzzles and riddles are deliberately thought out by the speaker.  They are purposely spoken.  And so it is with His parables.  All these things spake Jesus (Yahshua) unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Mt. 13:34-35, Psm. 78:2.

 

     Parables are not nice little illustrations; they are riddles and puzzles that are meant for only a few to understand and solve the mysteries of His governance in the earth.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

(For more on “parables” go to my book, Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality at      www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yah.htm   chapters 19-21)

 

 

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May 1, 2008 · 1:48 pm

Blessed Are the Poor–The Cardboard Cage

     Utter desperation does not bring out the worst in people; it brings out what they are inside.  Good or bad.  You’ll have looters and rioters during disasters revealing their dark thieving hearts.  But others will suffer their plights with an astounding amount of integrity.  I know this first hand.

     It was 1973, and my wife Linda and I were down in Northern Mexico in the Sierra Madre Mountains near the town of Galeana.  We were traveling by van on a deserted dusty road, trying to find a village in the mountains.  We had heard there was a famine up in those parts, and we wanted to help.

     In the back of our old Chevy van we had commodities—several sacks of dry beans, rice and corn—foodstuffs we were going to deliver to the needy.  We had been driving all day on rock roads; it was getting late, and we still could not find the village.  We were lost with no idea where the village was.

       All of a sudden, we came to a dead end; big boulders were blocking the way.  “Guess I’ll back up here and turn around,” I said to Linda. And as I turned around to look out of my side window, a man appeared.  It was as if he had just materialized out of nowhere.  He was the light brown color of the rocks and dust.  His face was wan and gaunt, and he had a look in his countenance that was past sincere; it was desperate. 

     I looked back at Linda as if to ask, “What do I do now?”  And her look back said, “Don’t look at me.”  I looked back at him and noticed that more people had materialized.  A dozen people stood just behind him now.  Before I could ask him in Spanish what he wanted, he held up a small cardboard box about the size of a cracker box.

       He looked me straight in the eyes and moaned in a mournful cry, “Pan! Pan! Pan!”  And each time he said that word, he would push the box a little closer to me.  I turned to Linda and said, “Oh, my God, Linda.  He’s saying “bread.” 

     I looked at the box; it was alive.  From within, it hummed and fluttered and scratched.  And then I saw the slits in the side of the box and realized that he held a bird in a cardboard cage, and he was wanting to trade it for bread!

       We immediately got out of the van.  We now knew why we had made the wrong turn onto this desolate dead end road.  We knew clearly for whom the food was meant.  We walked around the van, opened the back doors and invited them to it.  As the man’s companions carried the food away, he held up the bird in the box, sincerely wanting me to take the bird, thus completing the trade.  I looked at him and told him that I couldn’t do it.  He then turned and walked on up the mountain to join his friends.         Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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April 27, 2008 · 12:48 pm

Unrequited Love–The Ultimate Heartbreak

     I have a confession to make.  I cried today.  Unrequited love–life’s great theme seen in our literature, arts, and song.  It gets you every time, this “loving someone and that love not returned in kind.”

     I was listening to Jose Luis Perales and Alejandro Fernandez sing Perales’s “Por que’ esta soledad” (Why This Loneliness?).  I was galloping with the country rock rhythm, at once soaring with the music and yet saddened by the lyrics.  A rough translation of some of the words:

     WHEN I SEE YOU LEAVE AT HIS SIDE/ Cuando te veo ir a su lado/

SMILING SO HAPPY, CARESSING HIM/ sonriendo tan feliz, acariciandolo,

HANGING SHAMELESSLY FROM HIS WAIST/ colgada sin pudor de su cintura…

AND ME, SO IN LOVE WITH YOU/ Y yo enamorado de ti

IN LOVE JUST LIKE THE FIRST DAY WHEN I DIDN’T KNOW THE MOST BITTER SIDE OF LOVE/ AND I ASK MYSELF, WHAT HAPPENED TO US?  ALL THE TENDERNESS I GAVE YOU/

WHY THIS LONELINESS?/  Por que’ esta soledad?

     And at that instant, I thought of the greatest of unrequited loves the world has ever known–God loving mankind, and it not returned in kind.  And that’s what took the catharsis to the next level where my eyes got wet, the tears fell, and the heart broke.

     These words came to mind.  He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not…He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not…(John 1-10-11; Isaiah 53:3). 

     I needed this type of catharsis.  It hurts when our halting overtures of love are not returned in kind.  If we will multiply that pain by one thousand, then perhaps we might get a glimpse into the heart of God, into the ultimate heartbreak.  And that is a good place for us to be.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock     

    

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April 24, 2008 · 5:52 pm

“Be Perfect”–Christ’s Impossible Command?

     Christ gave us this command: “Be perfect.”  And, of course, the kneejerk response comes, “Wait a minute.  With all due respect, that’s not right.  Nobody’s perfect.  Why would He give us a command that’s impossible to keep?”

     This is where some will toss Christianity into the trashcan, never realizing that “Be perfect” is a paradox, ” a statement seemingly absurd yet really true” (Dictionary.com).

     But some will dig down to a deeper level and find that one man was and is perfect–Christ.  And they’ll see that He was perfect because of the Spirit that filled Him.  And they’ll understand that He has now given His Spirit to the sons and daughters of God, who will realize that they can grow in faith where “it is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

     And armed with this knowledge, they will see that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).  They’ll see that the glass is not half empty nor half full, but brim full and running over with the living waters of His Spirit.

     It will dawn on these princes and princesses of God that “no idle word” proceeds out of the mouth of God.  They’ll take this admonition to heart: “Let us go on unto perfection” (Hebrews 6:1-2).  And they’ll learn that there is so much more to God’s spiritual house than the foundation of “repentance from dead works and faith toward God,” which are the first steps of “newborn babes in Christ.” 

     They’ll realize that they have received in their hearts the seed of perfection.  Christ is that Seed.  And now that Seed is growing, for “one plants and another waters, and God gives the increase.”  This growth is likened to a planted seed of wheat or corn.  It comes up, “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”  And then harvest will come when He will have been perfectly reproduced in us.  And we then in full maturity will have completed the life cycle of God.  And that is perfection.

  The princes and princesses of God will realize this in the command: “Be perfect.”  For they will see these two words as His challenge to “overcome all things” and walk on down His road to the Heavenly City.  They will answer the challenge and embark on this quest for perfection.  Because He said to.              Kenneth Wayne Hancock

(If this was helpful to you, I’d love to hear from you.  Share this with a friend that might benefit from it)

 

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April 21, 2008 · 1:56 pm

Purge Out the Old Leaven = Getting Rid of False Concepts

     We have become the princes and princesses of God the King by our new spiritual birth.  We are in training to assume royal duties with Him upon His return to earth.

      What should we be doing to get ready for this great responsibility?  We are admonished to “purge out the old leaven that the lump may be holy” (I Corinthians 5:7).  

     Leaven?  What does that mean?  Look.  Christ is the “bread of life.”  We have received His Spirit and it is “no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me.”  Therefore, we as His body are the “bread of life,” too, because of His presence within us.  But we come into this new life with some old concepts about God and the affairs of this world system that must be gotten rid of.  We have carried over in our thinking old doctrines, beliefs, traditions, and concepts.

     Unleavened bread is “sincerity and truth” (I Cor. 5:8).  So, “leaven” must be insincerity and falsehoods.  Christ Himself told us to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1).  Yes, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.”  The Pharisees were the religious leaders, and Herod was the political leader back in that day.  They are symbols of religious and political leaders today.  “There is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  So, Christ is telling us to beware of them in our day, too.

     To “purge out” the old leaven, we must be brutally honest with ourselves and “examine ourselves.”  We must be open to new truth; if we are not open, then we must believe that we have all truth already.  And if we think that way, then it will be very difficult for the Spirit to “guide us into all truth.”

     No one except Him can help us get ready to rule with Him.  It is our responsibility to study and search out true concepts and get rid of false concepts about Him and His plan and purpose.  Like the “Reverend Mr. Black” said in song, “You gotta walk that lonesome valley; you gotta walk it by yourself.  Nobody else can walk it for you.  You gotta walk it by yourself.” 

     We must rid our minds of false religious and political concepts and take on the “mind of Christ” in order to “make our calling and election sure” as His princes and princesses.

    

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April 17, 2008 · 3:24 pm

Baptism: Empty Ritual or Symbol of “Death of Self”?

     “Why were you baptized?”  a survey taker asks, cornering us with his microphone and camera.  Most of us would have to say, “Because they told me I should do it.” 

     Question 2: “What does baptism mean exactly?”   Here most of us would scratch our heads and say, “Well, I’m not sure.  The minister and congregation were very supportive, and I feel that it was the right thing to do.”

     But the right thing for us to do is to “dig deep and build our house on the rock,” as Christ admonished us to do.  We dig deep by digging into the letter that He has left us, the scriptures of truth. 

     Baptism is an outward symbolic action of an inward, spiritual, and transformational happening.     The meaning of baptism is laid out in Romans 6:3-11.  “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death” (v. 3).  We are immersed into His death.

     Water baptism is a symbol of us identifying our old self dying with Christ, being buried with Christ, and being raised up with Christ.  It is where we identify our old sinful self with the Lamb of God, our sin sacrifice.  “He was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 

     When He died, my old self died.  When He was buried, my old evil nature was buried.  When He was raised from the dead, I  was raised from the dead!  Hey, this is not just my testimony; it is all of His children’s testimony. 

     And baptism in water is a symbol showing the world and God how we are regenerated. 

     How is this transformation done?  By faith, which is having assurance of its reality before we actually see it with our own eyes.  We have to reckon it so through God’s power.  “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God” (v. 11).  God has already reckoned the death of our old self and our resurrection with Him.  Why shouldn’t we reckon it so?

     Baptism is a symbol of our transformation into being right with Him.  We are now free from sin.  “For he that is dead is freed from sin.  We are now the children of the light, having escaped darkness.

     God’s sons and daughters, His princes and princesses, shall see through the empty rituals of Churchianity.  They will shine forth as lights “in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation.”  Their clarity of vision will help them sift through the barren sands of man’s traditions to ultimately find the “one pearl of great price.”     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

{If this has been helpful, make a comment and/or pass it on to someone you care about.  I would love to hear from you.  You can read more about this in Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality, Ch. 28.  Click the Blogroll “Yahweh Is the Savior” link to your right]

 

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April 14, 2008 · 3:55 pm

Hallelu Yah–God Gets the Last Laugh

     I was reading Psalm 150 the other day in the New International Version, and I noticed a footnote at the end of verse 1.  The verse said, “Praise the LORD.”  So I checked it at the bottom of the page, and the footnote read, “Hebrew Hallelu Yah.” 

     So I looked up Hallelu and it does mean “praise.”  I looked up “Yah” in Wikipedia and it said this: “The name Yah is composed of the first two letters of YHWH.  It appears often in names, such as Elijah…as well as the expression Hallelujah.”  So Yah is God’s name and was translated “the LORD.” 

    I looked up “YHWH” in Wikipedia and it referred me to “Tetragrammaton”:  “The name of the God of Israel, written with four letters…appears over 6,800 times” in the Bible.

     Halleluyah.  How many times have I heard that word in my life?  I immediately thought of an old hymn.  “Hallelujah, Thine the glory.  Hallelujah, Amen.  Hallelujah, Thine the glory, “Revive Us Again.”  And it appears not just in hymns–in popular music, Ray Charles singing “Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So.”  The “Glory, glory, Hallelujah” of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  And Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”  And the “Hallelujah Chorus” of Mendel’s Messiah. 

     And the movies, books, sayings, quotations.  And then I realized that the word “Halleluyah” permeates the very fabric of Western Civilization and American society, for we all have heard and said this word hundreds of times in our lives.

     And then I thought of God, sitting on His throne, looking down on us and smiling.  For He has the last laugh.  The “wise” men of this modern age have worked diligently to eradicate both God and His name out of the minds of the people.  And despite their efforts, the people still are praising His name in His original language Hebrew, when they say, “HalleluYah.”  Even the atheists praise His name when they say, “HalleluYah.”  He’s got to be laughing right now.            Kenneth Wayne Hancock

{For those desiring to read more on this topic, click on the “Yahweh is the Savior” link to your right under “Blogroll.”  There you’ll find my book, Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality…Make a comment; I’d love to hear from you}

 

    

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